


Terminal Velocity

by BubbleBakerPenguinPie



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Compliant, Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Spoilers, Civil War (Marvel), Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-14
Updated: 2016-05-14
Packaged: 2018-06-08 09:00:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6848092
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BubbleBakerPenguinPie/pseuds/BubbleBakerPenguinPie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If there's one thing Sam has down in this cell it's time to think.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Terminal Velocity

**Author's Note:**

> I watched Civil War over two weeks ago and haven't thought about anything else.

If there’s one thing Sam has down here it’s time. Down here is the abysmal hole meant for the very scum of the earth, the ones too dangerous to let walk free and too powerful to kill. Under different circumstances it might even be something like flattering.

If there’s one thing Sam has down here it’s time to contemplate where it all went so horribly wrong. It’s difficult to pinpoint a moment, to identify that crucial tipping point when merely unfortunate went to absolute, irredeemable shit. Maybe it was the moment he swerved to dodge the hit meant to take him down. How had it come to shooting each other out of the sky? Looking back, it all seems insane. They’d thrown cars at each other for fuck’s sake! Who does that? Sam had been to war, so he’s no stranger to extreme situations he doesn’t think, or at least he didn’t used to think so but that was before.

Maybe the point of no return was when they’d found Barnes, or when Barnes had been captured, or at whichever point during that Steve had resolved to move heaven and earth and quite possibly a few other worlds too in order to protect his friend. (In principle Sam agrees that locking up anyone in a glass cage like that is inhumane, but on the other he’s fought the guy twice now and it feels like pure luck that he’s still around to tell the tale, but Barnes is another can of worms entirely that was certainly not helped by being stuck in a tiny old Beetle on the German Autobahn for almost three hours with the guy.)

Maybe the tipping point had been the moment that bomb went off in Vienna and it was out of their control from the beginning. The thought is both comfort and vexation. Sam isn’t one to shirk responsibility, or comfortable with forwarding it. Which is why he doesn’t regret his stance on the Accords. While there is much to say about the danger of free agents who are accountable to no one, the thought of being subjected to a tome of government gibberish just doesn’t sit right with him. Power is dangerous, he knows that. He knows what kind of freaks and maniacs he’s been up against, he’s not a damn fool. It’s just that being presented with a paper muzzle a mile wide with barely a few days to even read through it, much less discuss or even amend it while simultaneously being told that them saving the world time and again is just _the worst_ – it reeks of something foul. Again, Sam is no fool – he knows what he’s been up against.

It’s just – it’s like expecting them to do the world’s dirty dishes and then complaining that they use up the dish soap. There is no proportionality. It’s not like they set out to level whole cities; that’s what the guys they’re up against do.

“It’s just – we were supposed to be a team.” He says into the dark room. Barton snorts. Ant-Dude mutters something unintelligible, but then again he’d only come along for this because he’d been called up (which Sam feels bad about now, but hey) – he wasn’t an Avenger, he hadn’t trained and fought along with him, with Natasha and Steve and Rhodey, Wanda and Vision.

“There is no trust left now.” Wanda agrees. She sounds choked. She’s been through way too much for someone so young; she’s just a kid, really. Then again when Sam was just a kid he was shipped out to Iraq and when he came back he wasn’t a kid anymore. Still, it’s a rotten deal but they bear it because in the end it’s worth it, because the world keeps spinning another day.

So when had it all gone so horribly wrong? When had an admittedly heated disagreement turned into trying to shoot each other out of the damn sky? Sam has a little sister, two nieces and a nephew, and an extended family of cousins, aunts, uncles… he’s no stranger to the fact that family disagreements happen, or that they can easily turn petty, downright ugly even, but that’s internal. On the outside at least they were supposed to be a team, to have each other’s backs.

Not to try and shoot each other out of the sky. It’s easy to pass blame, but Sam’s never been one to shirk his responsibility, no matter how tempting it may be. In turn, he expects the same from those around him. If there’s anything he has enough of down here it’s time. Time to contemplate, time to replay every detail in his mind, to go over it again and again looking for another way out. It’s an obsessive loop comprised of ‘what if’ and ‘if only’. It had been the same after Riley’s fall; the plummet, the diving, the ground approaching at breakneck speed while it felt like he was stuck in place, unmoving, even as the wind whooshed in his ears and whipped at his skin. Sam had thought for a mad second that if he succeeded now he could undo his past, if he only were fast enough, if he could only catch the other man before he hit the ground. It’s when you fall that you realize that maybe humans weren’t meant to fly, never when you’re soaring.

For a mad second he reckoned himself back, the grey of the airfield below him fading to ochre sand and rocks.

For a mad second he could almost feel the solid weight of Rhodey’s arm in his grip. It still tingles in his fingertips even now. It’s a phantom sensation he’d acquired when he’d failed Riley. No matter. Try again, fail again, fail worse.

It would be easy to pin his next actions on the guilt he feels. His heart had stopped when his team mate had crashed into the ground and only started beating again when FRIDAY announced that Rhodey still had a heartbeat, and then it hammered. His ribs still feel sore. That might have been due more to the repulsor beam though. Part of him can’t even blame Tony for that.

But part of him can. That part of him has no problem at all pinning the other man in a hard stare when he comes crawling up to the security glass of the cell with his black eye and his arm in a sling. That part wishes the guy had simply been able to see that Ross was playing his own feelings of guilt like Stevie Wonder does a damn piano.

But this is not the time for bitterness. And if there’s one thing about Tony one can be certain of it is that he will try to fix his mistakes and if it kills him. So he tells him: Siberia. And hopes this at least won’t turn out to be another horrible mistake.


End file.
